DIRT-e

According to a recent article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, there’s new product planned, dirt getting pushed around and big-box bulk warehouse buildings changing hands in metro Atlanta’s growing Braselton-Commerce Interstate 85 industrial corridor. What’s missing, though, are new tenants actually inking deals for vacant space.

IDI is progressing with site preparation work at Jefferson Distribution Center, which is on 230 acres at the I-85 and Ga. 82 interchange. The park will include buildings totaling about 3 million square feet. One pad is nearly ready to receive a 900,000-square-foot building, but no construction will begin here until a vacant, 570,000-square-foot block of space at the developer’s Hamilton Mill Business Center in the I-985 corridor is substantially leased. “I’m not losing deals to competitors so much as I am to the economy,” said IDI Vice President Lisa Ward. Space users are putting off committing to moves for the time being, she notes, “because many of them are unsure just where their sales figures are going to be over the next 12 months.”

Down the road at the U.S. Hwy. 129 interchange, Cousins has had a 460,000-square-foot building ready and waiting, and grading is nearly completed on an 840,000-square-foot building site.

Not far away, Duke Realty Corp. is putting the finishing touches on a new 550,000-square-foot building at its Park 85 at Braselton, says Chris Brown, senior vice president of the Atlanta Industrial Group of the Indianapolis-based REIT. “The economy has caused some deals that have been talked about to get put on hold, but we’re still very bullish on this market,” said Brown. “[Still], we’re going to have to make some leasing progress before we build anything else.”

Solution Property Group is developing the 400-acre Braselton Distribution Center just east of the I-85/Georgia 211 interchange. “We hope to start a new building this summer,” said Eben Hardie of Solution. “But first we need to see some of the deals people are talking about actually get made – and until we get more tenants signing leases, there’s no reason to be building up here.”

A joint venture made up of ING Clarion and John W. Rooker and Associates is also looking for tenants, in this instance for a 962,000-square-foot building in the Commerce 85 Business Park on 400 acres along I-85 at exit 147 in Commerce.

Potential tenants checking the Braselton-Commerce corridor for space this year have included Freightliner Trucks, a deal that, according to several sources, has been put on hold. Also, Walgreen Co. was, at press time, rumored to be in lease negotiations for space in RACO General Contractors’ Jackson 85 Distribution Center, at I-85 and Ga. 82.

There have also been deals that have turned into reality. In a recent major transaction, pet supplies/services provider PETCO leased a 506,240-square-foot building in Barrow County’s Braselton Business Park for a southern U.S. distribution center. Immediately prior to the lease, the building had been sold by DB RREEF to California-based Titan Real Estate Investment Group. Titan, in turn, flipped the building to Denver-based ProLogis while simultaneously inking the lease with PETCO.

Following its pickup of the PETCO property, ProLogis started site work on the 100-plus acres it acquired in 2006 near Valentine Farms Industrial Park. A start on a 600,000-square-foot building is likely later this year, according to ProLogis Vice President and Atlanta Market Officer Rodney Davidson, who reports that the REIT is also in the process of buying another 200 adjacent acres.